True beauty is not just an outward light,
But rather glow that stirs the soul within;
The outward beckons moths in mindless flight,
The inward is pure truth’s undying glim;
For outward beauty’s but a lustrous sheen
Whose gloss may yet conceal a darker heart;
And lack of luster may the converse bring—
To show that light the inward may impart.
Bright beacons can confound both moths and men
Oft leading promised pilgrimage to doom;
But from the humble butterfly we learn—
The truest light is not the one assumed.
For beauty is not always as it seems,
And shadows lurk beneath the fairest gleam.

©Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

Yes, those who read this verse in times to come
May doubt the truths that I have praised in pen;
Yet could they spend one minute of time’s sum
In your sweet grace, all doubt they would suspend.
Though many speak of Helen and her face,
Yet few recall the color of her hair;
And who remembers Cornelia and her grace,
Whose virtues bathed in light beyond compare?
True beauty is much like the rarest flower
Whose lease of heaven is both short and sure;
Yet once she’s picked and dried, she fades in power
And dies a death no physic can yet cure;
But in this song that I shall sing to men,
Your truth abides—your beauty lives again.

©Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

In my mind you will ever remain young
As to that moment when our gazes locked;
I see you in that place where we began—
The cover of a long-loved cherished book.
Time cannot mute the colors of the light
That shone forth from your heart-arresting smile,
And though some claim my eyes were blinded quite,
I do protest—conceding love beguiles.
Love’s golden book is but a storied verse
That weaves two songs mysteriously in rhyme;
Sweet strains of life no mortals can rehearse,
Both truth and myth played out in precious time.
Although the story’s end is yet untold…
You stay a mistress young, and never old.

©Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

The tyranny of time shall not prevail,
For in these lines your beauty shall live young.
Time’s jealousy shrouds beauty in his veil;
Worn, tattered vestment proving youth undone.
For Time himself cannot but ever age
And covet that which he can never hold;
But in these words his spoil is here forbade—
In living ink, your glory now retold.
As long as men can read and words avow;
As long as beauty’s grace remains esteemed;
As long as thought transcends the here and now,
So shall your visage live, and be redeemed.
In stalwart lines your beauty shall live on,
And mock his might till human hearts are gone.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.